Corrective Action for the Software Industry

Corrective Action for the Software Industry

From the introduction:

“Many people are confused about corrective action. They know it’s a requirement for compliance to standards such as ISO 9001. In some cases, the mandate is imposed by customers or regulatory agencies. Compounding this misunderstanding is that much of what has been written about the corrective action process is targeted toward manufacturing organizations, with the predictable references to tooling, production equipment, inspection of materials, storage issues, component design and the like. For software organizations, the product is intangible, and the processes may be electronically defined, derived, and controlled. Corrective action and the manner in which it is implemented needs to be explained specifically for software, both in language and supporting documentation.”

This practical handbook discusses the hows and whys of corrective action, with a particular focus on its application in software environments. It also illustrates how the process is integrated into the various other functions of the organization.

Plus, Corrective Action for the Software Industry includes a CD-ROM with PDF forms you can use in your corrective action process. The forms are:

Corrective action request form

Root cause analysis form

Action plan form

Follow-up form

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Software Corrective Action

Chatper 2: Who Should Be Involved?

Chapter 3: How to Write a Corrective Action Request

Chapter 4: Root Cause Analysis

Chapter 5: The Action Plan

Chapter 6: Follow-up

Chpater 7: Conclusion

I wrote the book with Denise Robitaille, a result of our mutual interest in quality. When Denise and I talked about how we coached people to perform corrective action, we were surprised by how similar our approaches were. So, we decided to write it down, specifically applied to software.

You can buy the book from the publisher, Paton Press. You can also buy it from Amazon.